“My dear girl, there is that in Antonia which would make me believe in the feasibility of anything. One look at her face is enough to set my brain on fire. And yet I love her as any other man would--with the heart, and with that alone. She is more to me than his Church to Father Corbelan (the Grand Vicar disappeared last night from the town; perhaps gone to join the band of Hernandez). She is more to me than his precious mine to that sentimental Englishman. I won’t speak of his wife. She may have been sentimental once. The San Tome mine stands now between those two people. ‘Your father himself, Antonia,’ I repeated; ‘your father, do you understand? has told me to go on.’ “She averted her face, and in a pained voice-- “‘He has?’ she cried. ‘Then, indeed, I fear he will never speak again.’ “She freed her wrists from my clutch and began to cry in her handkerchief. I disregarded her sorrow; I would rather see her miserable than not see her at all, never any more; for whether I escaped or stayed to die, there was for us no coming together, no future. And that being so, I had no pity to waste upon the passing moments of her sorrow. I sent her off in tears to fetch Dona Emilia and Don Carlos, too. Their sentiment was necessary to the very life of my plan; the sentimentalism of the people that will never do anything for the sake of their passionate desire, unless it comes to them clothed in the fair robes of an idea. “Late at night we formed a small junta of four--the two women, Don Carlos, and myself--in Mrs. Gould’s blue-and-white boudoir.